Corporations are not people

February 17, 2014

The Citizens United decision granting corporations equal First Amendment rights on par with ordinary people is just plain wrong.

The major reason is that the corporation, unlike a human being, is purely a government creation. There would be no corporation without the assent of some form of state government. This gives the state not only the authority but the responsibility to regulate the corporation. If corporations are allowed to influence the outcome of the election of state officials, then the corporation, in effect, will be able to regulate itself.

Over and above this, corporations are inherently different than ordinary people. Corporations are insulated from the consequences of their actions in a way human beings can never be. A corporation can, through its criminal negligence, kill literally hundreds of people. But you can never put a Goldman Sachs or a British Petroleum behind bars.

This is why the Citizens United decision is not only bad law, it is fundamentally flawed reasoning.